In persuit of love
by Fawkes909
Summary: Lily and james discover that in a world in disaray, love is the only way to thrive. A tale of woe, grief, hope and joy but most of all love and hope even in the darkest days of war.
1. The light brings no joy

A/N This is a fic about lily and james so i thought it fiiting to release it on James' birthday, the 27th march. Hope you enjoy:)

'Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but once' W.S

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Albus Dumbledore sat in a grand chair behind the most magnificent wooden desk which was sprinkled with the strangest collection of objects you could see on a desk, especially that of one of the most respected professors the world had ever seen. Some of the objects were wiring quietly or producing smoke and revolving but strangest of all was a great fiery coloured bird- Fawkes the phoenix. Around him paintings of the old greats and head teachers snored quietly and lazily. He was alone and the small amount of smoke made him feel sleepy but the bright oranges and reds of a sunrise shot through the many windows illuminating and telling dumbledore he had a full day ahead of him.

Yet, despite the quiet and welcome peace he could not sleep. His mind could not rest. It was distracted by thoughts on some of his favourite students he had ever seen, Lily and James. Dumbledore understood, perhaps more acutley than any other teacher, the pitfalls and disadvantages of having favourites but he truly did adore the couple. They had shown him that even in the face of absolute hate and evil love found a way and had joined the Order of the phoenix as soon as possible. They had not been alone, the rest of The marauders had also joined the Order as soon as possible and were currently some of their best fighters and members yet they were young- so very young. Other students had also joined straight out of Hogwarts but they had a less dangerous role in the resistance of Voldemort.

Lily and James had been so young and hopelessly in love when they had joined, promising to do all they could to fight the evil threatening their world. They had joined so naïve yet willing to fight it had buoyed Dumbledore who was running low in hope these days as Voldemort continued to become more powerful each day. Lily and James had been important to the Order because they were wanted by both sides and were both brilliant and likeable- they were perfect for the order and what it needed for it to survive. They also added in a bit of fun, a bit of mischief that had been misssed and desperately needed without youth, especially the marauders and Olivia. They had transformed the order into an organisataion that believed they could win, even if it was a fools hope.

He got up from his throne like chair and walked over to the window and looked out at the beautiful and peaceful grounds that surrounded the castle. He saw a small plume of grey rising up from the chimney and the sleeping and still womping willow.

He thought back to the reason it was there and remember back to the fateful day when he had brought death to some of his favourite students.

\--

Dumbledore heard a sharp knock from the brass knocker located on the door.

'Come in' Dumbledore said.

Lily stepped through the door followed closly by James, Sirius, Remus, Peter and Olivia. Both the girls, it seemed, had dressed up for the metting with the headmaster whilst the marauders wore old clothes, although James' hair seemed tidier than usual.

'Good evening sir' greeted Lily as she walked confidently into the study.

'Ah. Good evening all of you. Sit down please' said Dumbledore as he conjured some comfy old armchairs for the group.

'I am sure you have wondered why I have asked for you to come here and why I have been quite so secretive.

'Yes sir' said Remus and Lily, looking fascinated by every word that the ancient teacher spoke.

'Over the past few years a dark lord known as Voldemort'-Peter squeaked at the name but Dumbledore ignored it-' has grown more powerful with each passing day until he now presents a threat to out very way of life. It is therefore vital that we try to stop such hatred from ruining our lives. The ministry has assembled a group of aurors to try to prevent his rise any more and to reduce Voldemort's power but the ministry is not nearly doing enough.' Dumbledore paused

'Thirty years ago Voldemort left this very school as its most talented ever student, the route to minister layed out in front of him. But he decided against leaving to join the ministry and instead travelled extensive to gain knowledge of old powerful magic until five years ago when he reappeared with a group at his side; the deatheaters. Using this group of old powerful and dangerous purebloods and his own brilliance he soon came into the public knowledge. But he was not merley content to be in the public knowledge, Voldemort desired control and power over all others and aimed to destroy those who he saw as impure so, as you know, he started a campaign against those who were muggleborn. This started of mildly but had soon descended into what we say today.' Dumbledore got up and started pacing up and down the room all eyes locked on him.

'Something had to be done and with the ministry being predictably slow to react I formed a secret organisation to fight this evil; the order of the phoenix. I may have over reacted at the time when Voldemort was little more than a interesting feature on page 17 of the prophet but my guess of a grow in power for him was correct and we now live in a time where something must be done to stop the rise of evil.'

He now stopped and looked intensley at the group of six brave young adults in front of them. He said almost as an aside,

'What i will ask of you is beyond dangerous, you will be in immense danger for little reward'

'I know' said Remus guessing where Dumbledore would be going.

'It is due to his continued rise that I must ask the question of you that no proffesor should ever have to ask, would you like to join the secret organsiation that activly fights the dark forces in our world.'

'YES' snapped the long haired marauder almost immediatley. He looked quite happy at the thought at fighting- quite content at the thought of playing roulette with his single life.

'Thank you Sirius, but i think I have not yet told you all that you must know and I cannot allow anyone still in education; still in my care to join such a dangerous group'

'My parents won't care. They'll want to join as well' Interrupted James.

'I am afraid that it is final, you cannot join the order whilst in my care' two of the marauders immediatly started indignantly but Dumbledore held a hand for silence.

'I simply hoped to inform you of what you could do after you have left in this meeting and to tell you more about the order. Currently we have over 20 members scattered throughout different parts of magical Britain'

A sharp knock woke dumbledore from his reminisce.

'Come in' He called

The transfiguration teacher entered looking very flustered and holding a great amount of papers in her hands. Even more followed behind her but these all looked crumpled and wet. She also wore a soaking wet pointed hat and over cloak and Dumbledore noticed she walked with a distinct limp as she entered the grand office.

'My dear Mcgonagall' started the old headmaster looking aghast at the usually calm and controlled teacher that stood before him dripping in water, blood and with glasses at the bottom of her nose.

'How are you, what is wrong?'

'Deatheaters in Somerset, in the quantox' She paused to breathe and whipped out her wand to organise the papers she had dumped on the floor.

'They were everywhere Dumbledore. They were planning a raid i think on a small village, planning to do some muggle torture, when the aurors heard of a disturbance and went south to investigate. Natutally we were informed almost immediatley'

'Alastor?'

'Yes. He told us almost immdiatley and so rather than waist your time I organised a small team to go and have a look and see what we could do. Lily, Remus and I apparated down there and before we knew it giants were everywhere, there must have been a dozen of them-maybe more. I don't know, it was absolute chaos I did everything I could to slow them down. To stop them. But lily was distracted and Remus was weak; its nearly the time of the month. I thought we were dead.' She collapsed into the chair with a sigh. She readjusted her spectacles and shook her hair out before restarting, 'Then the aurors came with hit wizards and dangerous creatures squad I think. They dealt with the giants quite quickly, I think he who must not be named would be disappointed if he ever found out how easily we fought off the giants; certainly I expected more of a fight but they seemed almost to give up when the reinforcements came'

'Then they came' she said a look of fear emerging on her face, 'the deatheaters. When we fought the giants we took shelter in the valleys and lost a lot of height. It worked of course because the gaints were dealt with well but when the deatheaters apperated onto the hill they found that they could fire spells down onto us with ease and we could not repay in kind.'

'Which deatheaters were there?'

'At first it was only the low level ones i believe but they must have sent word that they had us in a compromising position so in the end Bellatrix and Rowle both turned up. There was little we could do. We were under heavy fire so we apparated away, we left it to the aurors to clean up. I heard they lost someone, that Bellatrix managed to hit Ashman.

'A shame. He was a good auror. How many turned up'

'At the end there must have been in excess of 15 but I think only 3 or 4 were high ranking' She answered with her voice now sounding more calm and collected

'That is good. Did you catch any? What are the papers? Would you like a sherbet lemon? Or perhaps a ginger snap?' Dumbledore offered kindly now she had said her story and looked more calm.

'A ginger snap? That's a bit out of the ordinary isn't it Albus' she said taking one from the box Dumbledore had offered. He merely shrugged at the question.

'I think one auror stunned one but they didn't get him. Shame really. I think some muggles were hurt too and definatley mentally scared but we know none died.That's a copy of the live battleplan for you to look over and a copy of some papers that Alastor thought might be useful for you to see.' She finished off her biscuit and dusted the crumbs of her hands before turning her attention to her hair to try to neaten it and make herself more presentable. She also dried her clothes with a flick of her wand,

'Has there been any other news?' she asked.

Dumbledore sighed at the question and turned his brilliant blue eyes away from Mcgonagall and towards the window and said quietly, ' The murder of the Archibald family'. At the end of the sentence Fawkes gave a single mournful note and Mcgonagall dabbed her eyes, 'They were a good family'

'Indeed...indeed and yet they were found dead with wands snapped in half just a short time ago.'

'Do we know who did it?'

'No, not for certain, but if I am correct it resembled that of a Dolohov killing'

'Awful, awful! Will the ministry do anything more for the top level ministers. The archibalds were a important family with reasources and connections, surely this must scare Barty Crouch'

Dumbledore sighed once and turned sad eyes on his former transfiguration pupil and said in an almost toneless voice, 'I do believe that Crouch belives that he must fight fire with fire. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the morning he extended the powers of hit wizards and the DMLE. '

'So he doing what they want.'

'In a way. He's making them the victim and turning people against the ministry when they need it most but what else could he do?' Albus asked.

Mcgonagall stared at him intently but recieved nothing but an unflinching reply.

'I don't know Albus. I feel for him I really do but this is too far, its too power obsessed, the current powers are already too strong!.'

She then heard the chatter of students below the office and realised the time. Realised how tired she was and much longer it would be until she wouldn't be quite so tired. She stood up and went to leave for the door saying only a polite 'good bye Albus' when Dumbledore said with conviction, ' Do not loose faith Minerva, it is our best attribute. To loose faith -to surrender belief- is to allow the darkness to suffocate the light. Goodbye Minerva.' He said as he was left alone in the office with nothing but paperwork to do but he knew he couldn't do it now. He was distracted.

He thought of what he had said to Minerva and smiled. Love and hope were the two eternal emotions, the two strongest emotions, no amount of hatred fear or evil could fully suffocate them. Yes they were both complicated he thought; that was proven by the couple he had been thinking about before Minerva had knocked, but when love was allowed to flourish-once it was accepted- it was beautiful. It was amazing.

Maybe James and Lily was not the perfect example for before the love there was pain and heartbreak but maybe it was the perfect example because James put his heart in front of lily and trusted her not to stab. And maybe love is giving someone the ability to destroy you and trusting them not to.

Maybe James and Lily was hard, so so hard but it was worth it. Because the bond was so powerful that Dumbledore knew even when they first started going out that they would never fully break up. He knew that every bit of sadness of lives was worth it when they were with each other. For love was the most powerful thing.

Yet it could not stop this war he thought as a chill went down his spine.

He looked out of the window towards the brilliant sky as the sun rose. It cast the horizon in the most beautiful colours; orange, red, yellows and golds decorated the sky. But the colours were not his, they were colours of glory yet Dumbledore had never felt more helpless. The new dawn bought Dumbledore no joy.

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**A/N-- Thanks for reading the first chapter. Hopefully this will be a big long novel and im sorry that chapter went nowhere and didnt even include the main characters in the story! Any feedback is good feedback. Thanks.**


	2. The noise of the night

Depth over distance

The night of sunday the 28th of August was a quiet with not a sound audable in Cokeworth except the chirping of early birds and the scratch of a quill on old and battered parchment. It was Lily Elisabeth Evans, a small pale skinned girl of 15 who's firey ginger hair lay loose on the messy and cluttered desk on which she was writing. Yet Lily was no ordinary girl for she was a witch who attended Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Lily was writing to her friend Ellie Flint who was currently preparing to come back from her second home in the south of France. Ellie Flint came from old money, an old family in the sacred 28 that had been important to magical Britain for over 500 years. She was the purest of the purebloods and was highly respected in high society. Yet Lily, a lowly muggleborn was best friends with her and was composing a letter to her.

The letter read,

Dear Ellie

I hope bordeux was nice, I hear that it was incredibly hot wether, it nearly hit 40 didn't it? I hope the family is still okay and can deal with the heat, I know that i couldn't.

Not much has happened here in cokeworth since I last wrote although I did see Severus near the swings looking sulky. I made sure not to make eyes contact and ran away. You and godric Gryffindor would be proud.

In other, news I got a letter from Remus and he got 5 Outstandings so I am absolutly over the moon that I beat him. I still can't believe how well I did but I still don't know what to do for NEWTs. I need your help, do I want to be a healer?

Remus also meantioned that James got 8 outstandings which is terrible. How the fuck did James get 8 outstandings. He has never worked hard. He has never even played attention in class he cus I swear his ego blocks his vision. I beat thats why he weras glasses.

Hope you are well and looking forward to seeing you on the first! Just cant wait for NEWTs and seeing you again.

Love Lily E.E

P.s. Did you fuck anyone french?

She smiled as she finished her letter and looked out over the garden bathed in the silver light of the full moon. She just couldn't wait to go back to school and the full moon, draping the small tame garden made the world seem beautiful in her eyes. She was at peace.

Until she moved her eyes over her room. We thats if you could call it a room, it was much more like a landfill, what with cloathes and books scattered through the room. There was books ontop of cloathes and cloathes on top of books and finally a layer of clothes and books. The rooms also smelt of an owl and from the 2 half eatne old pears sitting on the window. She had a lot to do before she even thought about school and so with desire to go back a flame lit in her heart and she grapped the 2 pears and chucked them out of the window and into a bin she saw below her window.

Unfortunately, her sister Petunia saw her do this and Lily knew that within a matter of moments she was going to be storming into her room and declaring that Lily was a disappointment to the family. Feeling that she really could not be arsed to talk to her sister she grabbed some cloathes and threw them at the door in an attempt to stop it being opened.

Sure enough barely 10 seconds later her sister was desperately trying to open the door and was shouting through the door but Lily could not make out what was beibg said so she left her postion near the door and walked back over to the window. She sealed her letter and gave it to her owl,Holly, and told him to deliver it to ellie.

By the time she had done Petunia had given up shouting and all was quiet now in her room.

Meanwhile far away, there was a deep gutteral howl, a scream for help.

Lily watched as a pigeon landed on her washing line and smelt the sweet scent of the flower bed below her.

The terrible and beautiful stench of blood stained the air and the wolf inhaled.

Lily snapped a piece of chocoalte off from a bar on her window sill and savored the flavour

The wolf devoured the rotting meat carcus, ripping bone after bone from the body, the white teeth glistening in the moon light as the wolf licked every last bit of blood.

James Potter watched in stag form as his friend ripped into a carcus of a dead horse and realised he had fallen in love with the chaso in his life

Lily evans sighed at the silence and realised she loved the peace she felt.

A/N

Thx to luca for making me finsih this chapter.


	3. The morning

Lily woke up early, or at least she thought it was early considering the dim light in the curtainless room. She turned over to see her barbie clock displaying 6:12.

She huffed and threw her head back onto the pillow.

Today would be the first day of a new academic term and with that thought stress immediatly piled on lily like a blue whale. The reason for the stress was complicated she thought but could be summed up with one word; Snape.

Snape had insulted her and called her a 'mudblood' last summer after the defence exam. He had cried and begged her to keep talking and he kept trying for weeks throughout the holidays to keep talking to her. And now she thought he would try today and that bought her to another problem; James Potter

He was a massive problem due to the size of his head. It could probably be counted as a moon due to its size. He had been asking her out for years and Lily doubted that it would stop now. God he was annoying.

Lily was stressed. She needed a way to destress.

Lily raised her cold hand to her mouth and slowly licked her fingers.

She slowly moved her hand down to her waist at the point between the nightshirt she wore and her shorts. She made a decision to go up towards her top and with her wet hand started coressing her nipple and slowly flicking it. She moaned once and immediatly regretted it.

Petunia would be furious if she was woken to the sounds of Lily masturbating and immediatly lily was no longer horny. She could hardly touch herself when petunia was at the forefront of her brain. Angry at Petunia, Lily quickly got out of bed and practically ran to the shower. She turned the heat up to scalding and stood in the shower letting the water flow over her. Angry, she threw the flannel she was using to the floor and stepped out of the shower to go for a walk.

She walked for close to 3 hours as she wondered from park to park, thinking only of the pastas she strolled.

When she finally got back home ahe arrived to a mess. Her mother was running around the house and Petunia was awake looking like a tiger on the prowl, looking for someone to pounce on. The moment she saw Lily she erupted,'where the fuck where you? You are meant to fuck off to that freak school soon.'

'Petunia', her mother warned.

'Fuck off, go galivant with that stupid Snape boy. You will be homeless and dead before you know it' she said glaring Lily right in the eyes.

'Fuck off tuney' Lily replied picking up the paper on the table and shovelling the nearest food, an apple, into her mouth. She really wished she had wanked after all.

2 hours later Lily was at platform 9 and 3/4 after saying goodbye to her parents. She deposited her luggage at the train and got on the nearest carrage looking in desperate hope for her friends but knowing in her heart she would only find Potter and Snape.

Sure another the moment she turned arounf James potters big head popped into view. Lily really should have had that wank


End file.
